Difference between revisions of "Hardware: ZyXEL PLA-4201 Twin Pack - throughput test"

Revision as of 23:28, 19 March 2013

It is not so easy to add wires/connection once flat or house is build. Even when people think about devices placement they can end up with missing Ethernet connection for some device. WiFi connection is not usable for all kind of network communication due to nature of it. WiFi have limited throughput, jitter and other kind of problems caused by "wireless" connection. So is powerline connection solution to this problem ? At beginning of this document i can say: "I don't know", but i try to find answer.

I bought ZyXEL PLA-4201 recently and I use this device during tests to find answers. I know how this device work by theory but I don't know what is in real word. In theory it should modulate all data to mains with hope that second device "catch" those data without too much distortion but there are several problems:

• switching power supplies and power regulators (light dimmer, vacuum cleaner "speed" settings) are creating serious noise covering wide range of frequencies
• power cables are not optimized to transfer "data". Most of the filters kill anything else that 50/60 Hz.
• if sockets are not on same power line then communication (as expected) is not possible
• communication can't pass transformers, surge protectors and other similar devices